


Epilogue

by verucasalt123



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Caretaker Sam Winchester, Curtain Fic, Dean Winchester Lives, Episode AU: s15e20 Carry On, Episode: s15e20 Carry On, Friendship, Hurt Dean Winchester, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Men of Letters Bunker (Supernatural), Permanent Injury, Post-Canon, Post-Chuck, Recovery, Season/Series 15 Spoilers, Sibling Incest, kind of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-24
Updated: 2020-12-24
Packaged: 2021-03-11 02:40:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,004
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28297680
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/verucasalt123/pseuds/verucasalt123
Summary: This is their world now, without Chuck’s thumb on the scale to keep his favorite show moving along at a brisk and exciting pace.
Relationships: Dean Winchester/Sam Winchester
Comments: 15
Kudos: 88
Collections: 2020 Supernatural & CWRPF Holiday Exchange, SPN J2 Xmas Exchange





	Epilogue

**Author's Note:**

  * For [meus_venator](https://archiveofourown.org/users/meus_venator/gifts).



Through the winter months, ever since Canton, Dean and Sam have been laying low at the bunker. It was a bit of a wakeup call, the way things went down there. It had been a couple of years since they’d lost Cas and Jack, and they have adapted to getting by without the personal supernatural concierge service they used to have. Of course, they hadn’t experienced quite such severe an injury as Dean had suffered in Ohio. Even then, Sam had tried praying for help purely out of instinct. If he’d hit that rebar only a couple of inches to the right, Dean would have been dead where he was standing. As it is, Sam still feels sick when he allows himself to remember the screaming that accompanied him pulling Dean away from the wall.

At least it had been a straightforward enough injury that Sam could rush Dean straight to the nearest emergency room and explain about how they’d been working in a barn (leaving out the fact that the work consisted of beheading vampires) when it happened. The tip of his scapula was shattered and needed surgery, and the wound would need constant care for the foreseeable future.

So they stay in, and Dean is (not surprisingly) the worst patient ever. He stops using the effective painkillers he’s prescribed because he can’t get it up and if he’s got to sit around and do nothing all the time he’d like to at least get the occasional blow job. Tylenol and sex, he decides, is better than Vicodin and a permanently limp dick.

Sam cares for Dean’s wound meticulously, watching for even the slightest sign of infection, and he’s not really complaining about the blow jobs. 

There is no hunting at all. Everything gets passed on to someone else. Neither of them has ever been laid up for so long because of an injury, but this is their world now, without Chuck’s thumb on the scale to keep his favorite show moving along at a brisk and exciting pace. 

Dean doesn’t do much at all, not for lack of trying. But his left arm is practically useless. Sam’s already an excellent field medic and he takes care of the maintenance needed for the monster puncture wound in Dean’s back, makes sure he does his physical therapy as often as possible. 

As the months go by and the medical treatment winds down, the Winchesters and Dean’s doctors all come to the same conclusion- Dean’s injuries have reached what the professionals call _maximum medical improvement_. Basically, this is as good as it’s going to get. The damage to Dean’s shoulder blade, tacked onto the many previous dislocations, is permanent. It leaves him with barely any use of his left arm without extreme pain and risk of further damage.

So this is it. The reality of their situation hits home and there’s no changing it. They’re done hunting. Sam won’t do it without Dean, and Dean won’t ever be able to do it again.

Dean spends three weeks drunk off his ass. 

Then there’s a huge blowout fight with slammed doors and sleeping in separate rooms and words they’ll later really, really wish they can take back.

As usual, a period of silence follows. With time, though, things start to even out and they’re talking like normal people. 

Dean decides he needs to figure out how to do as much as he can on his own, make adjustments to his daily routine, learn how to complete tasks with one arm instead of two. And really, he does have more than just one arm. His left hand works just fine, and so does his elbow as long as he doesn’t move it too much in the wrong direction. Sometimes he tries to do something and he can’t quite manage it. When that happens, it’s about sixty to forty whether he moves on to something else or has a raging tantrum.

Sam dives head first into every task he’d ever thought about completing in the bunker. Organizing, indexing, creating spreadsheets and searchable databases. It comes in very handy when they get a call from another hunter asking questions, which is a thing that seems to be happening more and more often as the months go by. 

Once they’ve been out of the job a year, they start getting visitors. Jody quits making excuses about being in the area and just calls to say she’s coming by, usually with food. Claire stops in occasionally, generally when she’s in too bad of shape after a hunt to go back to Jody’s. She eats voraciously and sleeps for a day and strangely talks about Cas like she misses him now that he’s gone. 

Then one day out of the blue, they get a call from Garth. They’re happy to see him, and even happier to know he’s still living his peaceful domestic life with Bess and the kids. He shows lots of pictures, and talks about the children constantly, and never brings up hunting. Until he does, one day, reminding them about how he’d done kind of a half-assed job of answering phones like Bobby used to, and suggesting it might be a cool thing for Dean to do considering how good he is at being the boss of pretty much anyone. 

After some thought, Dean decides it’s a good idea, and Sam is overjoyed. With everything being wireless now, there’s no maintenance or wiring required except keeping all the phones charged. 

Sam reaches out to their network with a list of aliases Dean would be using for different agencies, and takes suggestions as to any other agencies they might want to add. It’s easy to set up and it’s just the thing that will give Dean a sense of purpose after having floated around the bunker all this time. 

On a Wednesday at a little after two o’clock, Sam’s in the kitchen when he hears the phone ring, then hears Dean’s gruff voice from the war room. 

“FBI, Agent Plant.”

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[Podfic] Epilogue | By verucasalt123](https://archiveofourown.org/works/29007534) by [ladygizarme](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ladygizarme/pseuds/ladygizarme)




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